Keep nickname in posts after member deletion ?

Sometimes a member asks for his forum account to be deleted (for whatever reasons). After the account deletion his posts remain but for name of the author they have "Guest".

After some member deletions you can't tell apart who wrote what, because they all appear as guests.

A good idea would be to keep the original forum name without a profile or any other data. Nothing changes but the name which no longer is "Guest" but the name the member had when he created the account. This doesn't afffect any personal data because a nickname is just a nickname. It will not link to anything real, like an address or a telephone or a profile.

Well I think if they did delete there profile then that name wouldn't be available. If done properly. A good example would be Vbulletin, you can choose options for deletion of a member account. One of these options is to keep the username and then once that persons profile has been deleted that username isn't available any more.

I think if an option like this was to be added it would be useful. I think you should still be able to identify who has deleted themselves and there previous posts.

@SLGray wrote:The only issue with this is when someone creates a new account with that username. You will have two sets of posts with the same username. Maybe change the username to Guest 1, Guest 2, Guest 3, etc.

If done correctly noone will be able to use a name that has been already used.As mentioned by Derri, this is available in Vbulletin.Also, this could be optional for anyone who wants it in his forum. The others could just continue to have all the deleted members under the genaral term "Guest"

I don't let members delete their own accounts, I do it for them if they ask. On another forum I experienced trolls joining and leaving again, sometimes several times, just to cause trouble.

I came here to ask if it would be possible for usernames to remain on messages after a person has left the forum. I think it's a good idea for the reason already stated - anyone reading a thread might come across guest messages which had been written by several different people.

If a new member wants a username that had been taken previously, that's too bad! They can always call themselves the name with a 2 after it, or use their imagination and think of a new name.

I don't agree. One of the reasons for deleting a member's name is to remove that person from the forum. Wouldn't it be easier to just have an auto delete for all the posts for that person who left? Those posts won't show any more. Right now, I believe the admin has the right to "hide" those posts from any deleted member if they so chose, so they no longer appear. I may be wrong on this, but thought I saw it. The user name should belong to the user. If that user is no longer connected to that forum, why would you keep that person's name, which may be what they are known by elsewhere? I think the user name should belong to the user and that if they choose to leave a forum or are booted, then that name should be removed with them.

Last edited by ctrr03 on January 21st 2014, 5:24 am; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : to clarify my answer.)

@ctrr03 wrote:I don't agree. One of the reasons for deleting a member's name is to remove that person from the forum. Wouldn't it be easier to just have an auto delete for all the posts for that person who left? Those posts won't show any more. Right now, I believe the admin has the right to "hide" those posts from any deleted member if they so chose, so they no longer appear. I may be wrong on this, but thought I saw it. The user name should belong to the user. If that user is no longer connected to that forum, why would you keep that person's name, which may be what they are known by elsewhere? I think the user name should belong to the user and that if they choose to leave a forum or are booted, then that name should be removed with them.

Deleting a deleted person's posts would cause even more trouble. In a thread people usually post questions and answers. Imagine a thread with 20-25 posts and suddenly remove 7 of them. The thread will not make sence anymore. Posts missing is the worst senario ever.

As for the uniqueness of the forum name, that's not an issue. It's not their real name so they could keep it. It's just a made up name that links to none whatsoever personal information. If i like tomorrow i will use "ctrr03" name in another forum. What is wrong about it? It's like saying that anyone that uses "Biker" in any forum in the world is me, the same person. Well i'm not!

Finally, deleting a person from a forum doesn't mean we will not give credit to his posts. Some people write very usefull posts and even if they want to delete their accounts, people should know who wrote what.

I agree with what Biker has written. We had one member who decided to leave after posting over 3,000 messages, some of which were very interesting. If all of his messages vanished, some of our threads would make less sense; it would look as if other members had answered posts that never existed.

On our forum, any messages which are illegal or contravene the house rules (which incorporate the rules laid down by Forumotion) are removed when a staff member sees them. There is no need to delete perfectly acceptable messages simply because the poster has left. Why try and pretend that a poster was never a member of your forum?

In the past year, two of our members have died of cancer. I de-activated their accounts and inserted 'deceased' under their avatars. They were both good posters, and as a mark of respect I don't want their many contributions to become anonymous. If their names could remain on their posts, I would delete their accounts. I very much hope that Forumotion will provide the facility to enable that to happen.

OK....that is true about the posts. But, why not just change the user name to something else, especially if that poster leaves in anger and wishes to have no contact with that forum whatsoever. However, I can see your wanting to distinguish between posters and not have them all have the same name. But, an admin can still change the user name before they deleted the account to remove that name if it is requested. Not really all that hard to do and it would still honor the request of that person deleting their account. In the case of the person that died, that is perfectly logical thing to do, the same as it would be if a poster left the forum on good terms.

On our forum to date, anyone who has wanted to close their account hasn't asked that their username be removed from the forum as well. In any case, it was never an issue, since all posts emanating from deleted accounts just say 'guest'.

We've never allowed members to change usernames, because it causes confusion. Anyone reading the threads would see members responding to a different name from the one displayed! The same issue would occur if the username is changed just before an account is closed.

I agree with Derri that we should be able to see who made all previous posts. And as Biker said, most people don't use their real names and there is no link to any personal information.

I strongly support this request to be able to keep usernames on posts after member deletions.